“Would you be made whole?” That is a good question. Yes…of course. You then stop to think about what it means. I thought about my journey and all the heartache that was there. I wondered if it was worth it to go back and relive what I had lost. I had chosen to end the life of one child and I had lost another to miscarriage.
Memorializing the life of my aborted baby was just the beginning. Pastor Carolyn came back from a conference she had attended and slid a folder across the table to me. It was an outline of an evening of prayer for those who had aborted.
I slid it back and said, “We have to do this.”
She slid it back to me and said, “Do it.”
Rachel’s Cry was born that day.
Emotions were raw as I made every Rachel doll by hand. They represented the millions of babies lost. Two of them represented my babies. The Bible tells us that our tears are caught in a bottle in heaven. My bottle must be huge.
These are some things I felt.
- I am the family secret.
- I am all alone.
- A piece of me is gone.
- It never stops hurting.
- I am depressed, angry, and can’t be forgiven.
My healing—as is most healing—was a process. It was 24 years before I told my secret to anyone outside my family. As I learned the character of my God and began to feel His love for me regardless of what I had done, it was easier to move out from under the cloud of guilt and judgement that I had placed upon myself. The unfocused anger transformed to anger at myself for buying into the “lie”. As time passed my experience was shared with more and more family and friends. It became healing instead hurting. Depression was replaced by a sense of expectancy…almost excitement as the opportunity to help others presented itself.
My choice did not just affect me, but also the people within my circle. Dad, Mom, brother and sister, and countless others had ridden my emotional rollercoaster with me as I moved through life and healing. But there was one BIG giant that I had not dealt with: unforgiveness. I learned that forgiveness is not for the other person—it was for me. It took a while to understand this concept. If I was ever to move on I had to forgive a lot of people. I can’t name all of them, but as I went down the list I became free. My biggest hurdle was forgiving myself.
Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself.
There was still a place in me that felt I did not deserve that gift. One day I asked the Lord to help me forgive myself, and in His faithfulness, He did and I did.
Another part of my healing journey has been to memorialize the lost lives. At the Rachel Service we memorialize all the babies that have been lost and not had their lives acknowledged. My aborted son has a tree planted in his honor. I also wanted to give him a name, so I chose that of his earthly father. That brought such peace. Forgiveness is giving up the hope that your past could have been any different.
I am convinced that without God as my partner through this journey I would still be a broken vessel, and I thank Him every day for lovingly walking this path with me.